About this blogger

I’ve been interacting with people in cyberspace since the late 80s. Most venues have been forums, or mail lists. I’ve owned, operated, and/or moderated many of these. I know their blessings and cursings, and overall I’m grateful for them. I still participate in several, and I read a good many more of them as a lurker.

I’m slow to come to blogging. My only previous attempt I more or less abandoned (some of its posts will reappear here eventually) because my own involvement with its subject matter was so fluid that I worried that I’d make some posts obsolete, and so I would delay until I had pondered things yet unpondered.

The subject matter of this blog, however, is something I’ve pondered for over 25 years. “Gender issues” have figured prominently in my pastoral ministry for the simple reason that “gender problems” kept knocking on my pastoral door. Marriage is a gender issue. So is divorce. So is abortion. So are most family problems, parenting problems. If gender lies at the very core of our identity as individuals (and, it does), it should come as no surprise that misunderstandings, ignorance, confusion, and rebellion related to how God has created our sexuality to work should percolate into every area of our lives. A hole in the roof of your house is fairly straightforward to deal with, to fix, or to manage until a fix is arranged. Major movement in the foundation is another matter entirely. Issues about the meaning and relationship of the sexes is one of those foundation issues in the faith.

Like I said, I’ve been more or less forced to deal with these issues, and so I’ve thought long and hard about them for decades now. So, I do not find myself casting around for finished thoughts in this subject area.

For those who know me through the organization that produces Five Aspects of Man or Five Aspects of Woman, what you will find here are excursi into details that are skimmed or summarized in those curricula. For those of you who do not know these curricula, you may get an sense of their overall content if you read very far in this blog. I will be recommending pastors, Christian education directors, and Christians serious about Biblical theology to look into this blog to catch a sense of the content and convictions of those curricula.

For those who put stock in the personal context of a writer’s ideas, I’ll say that I graduated from Texas Tech University, with a major in philosophy, a minor in Greek, and more than minors in math, chemistry, and physics (the result of changing to a preseminary curriculum from science majors well into their implementation). I received a Th.M. from Dallas Seminary, with a major in Hebrew and OT studies. I’ve served as a pastor or very active lay minister in six congregations (three Bible churches, one Baptist church, and two Anglican parishes) over a period of 30 years. I am married to my first wife since 1981, and I am the father of four daughters.

A word about the blog ID “Fr. Bill” …

“Fr.” is an abbreviation for “father,” and I claim entitlement to that form of address on biological, legal, Biblical, spiritual, and ecclesiastical grounds. I am, as I said, the biological father of four daughters. I am legally the father-in-law of one young man (so far). Moreoever, I am that same young man’s godfather, having stood for him as godfather and sponsor at his baptism prior to his becoming not only my son in God, but my son-in-law. These uses of the title are licit on the gounds of copious Biblical pattern and precedent. Finally, “father” is the proper way I am addressed by members of my own ecclesial communion, or by others outside it who respect its customs.

If you are one of those who blanch at the use of the title “Father” because of what Jesus taught in Matthew 23:9ff, I will not hold it against you if you address me as “Bill.” I receive the application of the title to myself with joy from those who understand its blessedness and its compliance with our Lord’s teaching.

Bill’s Blog Posts

Bill's blog Faith and Gender is now migrated onto this website. The comments are now visible!